It is not an uncommon experience in localities which experience significant snowfall to see a slab of snow fly off the roof of a passenger car or van and strike a following vehicle. Regardless of the vehicle from which the snow is released, the experience is startling to the driver behind. However, if the snow or ice come loose from atop a truck, large semi-trailer, bus, van or other type of large vehicle, the event can be very dangerous.
This has always been a concern of the trucking industry. Therefore, trucking companies spend considerable money to clear snow and ice from the roofs of trailers after every major snow storm. This effort not only requires money but also takes significant time, so that the operation of the trucks of a large fleet can be delayed significantly after a snowstorm. Furthermore, since the snow and ice removal has generally been done manually by workers shoveling from atop the trailers, employers and insurance companies are very concerned about the danger of such workers slipping and falling from the typically 13 foot high trailer roofs. Furthermore, at least one state, New Jersey, requires that such roof snow and ice be cleared before a truck moves onto a public road, but even without such requirements, there is a significant increase in fuel consumption, and therefore an increase in the cost of operation, if snow or ice is not removed.
Several devices exist to attack this problem. U.S. Pat. No. 5,802,654, discloses an immovable bridge like structure supporting a vertically adjustable wedge shaped plow that vehicles can move under to have snow or ice removed. U.S. Pat. No. 5,989,356 uses a snow removal scraper supported on a pillar installed on cement footings.
Published Patent Application US2009/0282708 discloses a structure that is not imbedded in the ground, but instead is held down by four removable concrete blocks which rest on two base plates attached at the bottom of the vertical supports of the bridge like structure. The snow scraper structure can then be moved to a storage location when not in use. This is accomplished by using two forklifts vehicles with 5000 pound capacity. The forklifts first lift each of the 3 ton concrete blocks off the base plate. Then, by inserting their forks into pockets within the two base plates at the bottom of opposite sides of the bridge structure, the two forklifts work in tandem to move the structure. This is no easy task since the structure weights 8,800 pounds, is over 16 feet tall, and is approximately 17 feet wide.
While all of these solutions have been geared toward semi trailers in response to the needs of the trucking industry, there remains a need to efficiently remove snow and ice from the roof tops of other type of trucks, buses and other large vehicles.
A problem exists with these structures in that their plow designs are not always suitable for scraping snow from various types of vehicle roofs. For such plows, even where they include a protective strip along the edge which engages the vehicle roof top, damage to the vehicle roof may occur.